GROWING HEALTHY KIDS: WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Breakfast Matters

GROWING HEALTHY KIDS: WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Breakfast Matters: "Children are our most valuable resource."                 -- Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States W...

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Breakfast Matters

"Children are our most valuable resource."  

              --Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States

When we teach kids about healthy eating, we always include a class about breakfast. When we teach a class for parents, we always ask, "What did you have for breakfast today?  Was it a good example for your children?" 

The first meal of the day when you “break the fast” after a night of sleep should give your body and brain the energy to start the day feeling vibrant, alert, and alive.  It should contain foods that will not cause your blood glucose and insulin levels to spike excessively high.  After all, what goes up must come down.  When kids are allowed to eat highly processed carbohydrates for breakfast, such as Honeybuns, Sugar Smacks, or instant oatmeal, they turn into little yo-yos of human energy.  Processed and refined carbohydrates cause extreme highs and lows in blood sugar and insulin which have been shown to lead to overeating.

Here are 3 delicious ideas for you and your kids to start the day right:

• Eggs and fresh, seasonal fruit (my favorite Sunday morning breakfast: a Portobello mushroom omelet with half a grapefruit or a dish of fresh strawberries)
• Steel cut oats with nut milk, pecans and dates or raisins 
• Pinto or black beans, avocado and fresh lime juice (don’t forget the Crystal hot sauce!)

Kids need good breakfasts to power their minds for learning and provide long-lasting energy for their bodies.  Guess what?  Parents need the same thing!  Using these breakfast ideas will go a long way to helping your kids stay at a healthy weight and teach them the importance of eating a good breakfast.  Bon appetit! 

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. 

PS-To schedule GROWING HEALTHY KIDS IN THE KITCHEN classes for your organization, please send an email to wellness@growinghealthykids.org.  Thanks!   

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Love Your Heart

“Blood pressure tends to rise with age.  About 65 percent of Americans age 60 or older have high blood pressure.  However, the risk for prehypertension and high blood pressure is increasing for children and teens, possibly due to the rise in the number of overweight children and teens.”  

                                                                   ---National Institutes of Health

February is American Heart Month.  Did you know that kids age 3 and older should be screened for high blood pressure?  Did you know that being obese is one of the risk factors for high blood pressure?  Have you talked with your children’s pediatrician yet? 

According to the National Institutes of Health, prevention and treatment of high blood pressure involves the following:

• Healthy eating
• Being physically active
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Limiting alcohol intake
• Managing and coping with stress

Buried in the “healthy eating” message is the advice to limit sodium intake to no more than 2,300 mg a day or lower for individuals age 14 and older.   Nine out of ten kids consume too much sodium, most of it from processed foods.  

Consider the fact that 1/4 teaspoon of salt contains 590 mg of sodium.   Sodium is the elephant in the room. The fact is that the more salt you eat, the high your blood pressure will be.  Salt is everywhere, hidden in processed foods.  Restaurant foods are loaded with it. We talk about reading food labels and estimating portion sizes but the fact is most parents have no idea how much sodium their children actually consume. 

Next time you see a recommendation for “healthy eating,”think about salt.  Increase your awareness of the foods that are salt mines.  Some foods that are hidden sources of large amounts include hot dogs, prepared macaroni and cheese, ketchup, and canned soups.  Many of these contain more than a day’s recommended amount in one or two servings.  Eating dangerously high levels every day, combined with being overweight or obese, is a recipe for high blood pressure. 

Protect your children’s health and their hearts.  Learn about high blood pressure.  Read food labels to become aware of all the foods your children are eating that contain obscene amounts of sodium.  

Make sure your children are being screened by their pediatrician.  To learn more about high blood pressure from National Institutes of Health, click here. 

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. 

Increasing access to food during the drought season

Hello Friends,

The continuous dry spells the country is experiencing has led to an emergency predicament on household food security. In recent meetings, non-governmental organisations have been coming together to find solutions to mitigate the effects of the drought exacerbated by the El Nino phenomenon. In light of this, Nhaka Foundation has to answer a lot of questions internally as we work towards identifying immediate solutions to the hunger faced by children and caregivers alike. The most recurring question in our team conversations has been; how do we as an organisation continue to provide access to education, food and health services for the children in light of the funding challenges faced by many organisations in the country?

According to the Lean Season Monitoring Report released in January 2016, the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) assess that the effects of the drought are far reaching and are extremely visible in the rural areas. Grain prices have gone up by 35% nationally meaning people will have to pay more for very little.  Livestock prices have plummeted as farmers seek ways to get income in order to buy basic necessities for their families. Previously, cattle could be sold for at least US$380 on the market, now sales have gone down to as little as US$80, a necessary give away as farmers feel they would rather sell their cattle for very little instead of watching them starve to death (ZimVAC, January 2016, pp. 50-51). 

Social behavioural change is also a result stemming from the current situation. An article published by Her Zimbabwe in September 2015 refers to the increase in child marriages being attributed to by poverty as opposed cultural reasons and makes mention of surveys conducted by UNFPA. This is further corroborated by the surveys carried out in the ZimVAC report (ZimVAC, January 2016, p. 42) which attests to an increase in child marriages as parents are marrying off their daughters as a way to firstly ensure that their child will be taken care of and secondly earn some income in order to support the remaining family. As misguided as this is, the bride price creates a source of income for the families. The same report also states; issues of gender based violence, physical or sexual are more frequent with an increasing number of reported cases of domestic violence. Suicide rates have also increased.

One of the interventions Nhaka Foundation undertakes is a primary schools feeding program. The program ensures that each child in the schools that we support goes into the classroom and has the opportunity to maximise their potential and participates in classroom activities. Teachers at the different schools we support attest to the fact that absenteeism is decreasing, participation is improving and evident health conditions that spread quickly such as skin infections have improved. In order to increase a child’s potential to succeed through ECD enrolment we address issues of child protection and other pertinent social issues through continuous engagement with parents, community leaders and other stakeholders. However, these parenting programs need to be worth their while as parents are under increased pressure to find food for their families. This is a challenge Nhaka Foundation is seeking creative solutions to address. 

With the continued assistance of our donors, friends and supporters, we will continue offering support programs that continue to push our vision to create a nation with young children living a life full of possibilities even amidst the current challenges facing our nation.

Until next time,

Charity

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Teaching Parents

“Like many young doctors, I had received virtually no instruction in nutrition.  Then, as now, medical schools focused almost exclusively on drugs and surgery, even though lifestyle causes most cases of heart disease and other chronic disabling condition.  In retrospect, my lack of formal knowledge of nutrition was a blessing in disguise.”      --David Ludwig, MD, PhD, from Always Hungry?

If doctors receive no training about nutrition in medical school, 

then is it any wonder that parents receive no training?  Since parents are responsible for foods purchased for their children, how do they learn about the good foods that children need for strong bodies and healthy minds?  If advertisers have their way, the only thing parents need to buy are the foods placed intentionally at eye level in grocery stores.  With every advertising dollar spent, they are telling parents, “Don’t worry about those highly processed foods, all those food dyes, and all the added sugars, fats, and salts.  Just buy what we tell you to buy.” 

We did that and now we have a childhood obesity epidemic on our hands.  According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 17% (or 12.7 million) of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese. 

Babies are being born to obese mothers.  According to Dr. Ludwig, “excessive weight in one generation may predispose the next for higher lifetime risk of obesity, apart from genetic inheritance and the tendency of offspring to pick up their parents’ lifestyle habits.”*  We have a responsibility to America’s next generation to teach teenagers and young adults about the importance of getting to, and staying at, a healthy weight before they become pregnant. 

Here are 3 tips for parents (and parents-to-be):

1.  Read food labels:

• Count the number of ingredients.  If there are more than 5 or 8 ingredients, choose something else. 
• If you can’t pronounce the ingredients, they are not good for you.  
• If food dyes are listed in the ingredients, don’t buy it. 
• When buying breads and pastas, choose products with the word "whole" as part of the first ingredient (as in "whole grain oats") and with 4 or more grams of dietary fiber per serving (this is known as "The Nancy Rule").  

2.  Plan your meals around what vegetables are in season and locally grown, whenever possible. 

3.  Go for walks after dinner with your children.  This habit will help improve digestion, lower insulin and blood sugar levels, and promote a better night’s sleep.  

Please pass the butternut squash!

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.

*Ludwig DS, Currie J.  The association between pregnancy weight gain and birthweight: a within-family comparison.  Lancet 2010; 376 (9745): 9840990; Ludwig DS, Rouse HL, Currie J.  Pregnancy weight gain and childhood body weight: a within-family comparison.  PLoS Medicine 2013; 10 (10): ed1001521.

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Joy of being in the field daily...

Hello Nhaka Friends,

My name is Glenda Takavadii and I work as a Senior Program Officer at Nhaka Foundation. My work is to primarily ensure that our programs are all being implemented according to the agreed plans and timelines.This means that I get to spend a lot of time in the field and I absolutely love it! I am one of those people who easily get bored with monotonous work, so I am thankful that in my work, every day is different from the one before. I plan my work a week in advance and am always guided by the overall Nhaka Program Implementation plan. I mostly enjoy being in the field because the team and I get to implement the programs, converse with communities and see the impact the programs we deliver are making on the ground.

The programs we implement at Nhaka Foundation bring in a lot of value into the meaning of life. Being in the field working alongside poor communities is not for the faint hearted because anything and everything can happen anytime and you have to be proactive, responsive and be sensitive to communities. The roads we use to reach the communities are nothing short of prominent gullies and craters that are on dirt roads. A journey that is supposed to take 30 minutes can easily take twice or thrice as much time due to the effects of gully erosion, non maintenance and the like. The scenery however compensates for the bad roads.  The views are breath taking and sometimes you can temporarily forget about the troubles of the world. 

I remember that on my first field visit at Nhaka Foundation our truck decided to sever the power steering cable just after we had left the city and turning back was not an option for the determined duo. Truth be told I also didn’t want my boss to think I had failed on my first field visit ;). My job also involves field research which entails assessments of the schools and communities we serve, looking at their current needs, their ability to respond and areas in which the team may come in to assist. Some of the schools we work with are in the most vulnerable and poor rural communities. The difficult part about my job, I would say, is keeping my emotions in-check, even when the situation on the ground is dire and you have no idea where the funding will come from to assist or be part of creating a solution together with the communities.

At the end of the day knowing that our programs and collective work with the help from our partners and the high involvement and participation of the guardians and caregivers of children, makes it all worth it. 

Best wishes,

Glenda